Ave Verum Corpus
by Nardaviel
Summary: Light before the Death Note, in D major. Prompt set from 18coda@LJ.
1. a capella

**a capella** _one or more vocalists performing without an accompaniment_

* * *

Light knows his father is helping people when he's not home because his mother tells him when he asks, and sometimes when he doesn't. Helping people is important, everyone knows that, and so Light doesn't complain, even when Soichiro promises to be home early and then misses dinner. Instead, he gives his mother an extra hug when she puts him to bed, and curls up with his blanket and his stuffed helicopter, telling himself his father's helping lots and lots of people.

It's frightening to think of being out in the world without his mother, and Light's rather selfishly glad that Soichiro's brave enough to leave Sachiko at home. Still, though, he wants to be just like his father when he grows up, and if his father accomplishes so much all by himself, then Light had better start preparing for it as well.

So the next night, once his mother's left, he gives Bird the helicopter one last hug, and rubs his cheek one last time against the big fluffy duck on his blanket, and then he wraps Bird in Ducky and carefully drops them on the floor beside his bed. "Good-bye," he whispers to them, blinking back tears his father wouldn't shed.

Hours pass, or so it seems, but the bed still feels oddly and frighteningly too large with just Light in it. Without Ducky, the room seems cold and the sheets flimsy protection against attackers. If Light closes his eyes, he knows, the shadows will grow teeth and lunge at him.

And although he doesn't want to acknowledge it, he's awfully lonely.

Quickly, before anything can bite his arm off, he grabs Ducky and Bird from the floor and clings to them. Immediately, the shadows turn back into shadows, and the night is friendly again.

It's all right, he tells himself later, from his secure position curled beneath the friendly weight of Ducky. He's only two years old, and Soichiro, he knows, is thirty-three. He has years and years to learn how to be alone.

Maybe he should start with the moustache instead.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi. I was originally going to post this fic all at once, but I'm going to try serializing it instead, in hopes that that will guilt me into actually finishing it. We'll see, I suppose. The chapter titles are prompts from the LiveJournal community 18coda, and I've stolen the definitions from there as well. Hohoho.

If all goes according to keikaku, the fic will provide little snippets of Light's life, from when he's about as young as he can be while still having a perspective to write from (that would be this chapter) to just before he picks up the Note. Everything is inspired in large part by Vashtijoy, who is also my beta-reader.

As for the title, I like Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, and it reminds me of Light. So yes.

APRIL 27, 2013: I've made a number of small revisions. All changes are either stylistic or incredibly minor, but some were badly needed.


	2. cadence

**cadence **_a sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase, either in the middle or the end of a composition_

* * *

The new house is only a few years old, and larger than the other, with more thoughtful little touches. Light's room even has its own balcony. His parents have forbidden him from using it until he's seven, though, and that seems to him to be an unfathomably long time.

Sachiko has said more than once that the utilities are much nicer than the ones in the old house. She sounds delighted, and Light supposes it's a good thing, on the whole, especially after Sachiko tells him it means more hot water for his bath. He doesn't mention that the bathtub itself is smaller, or that the rumble of the old house's heating unit soothed him to sleep during the winter.

As best Light can make out, Sayu doesn't like the new house much, but she didn't seem to like the old one any better. If she likes anything besides Sachiko and her little stuffed doll, Light can't tell. She's a fussy baby, loud and demanding, and he wonders sometimes if he was ever like her.

No, he decides each time. Not him. The tears are a girl thing, probably.

Still, they're going to all this trouble for her, moving to a bigger house. The least she could do is be more gracious.

The move has progressed more quickly than he counted on, and now he's standing in his bedroom for the last time, feeling as though the full significance of the moment is eluding him. The room itself is empty, as is the rest of the house; the packing is done, the boxes and furniture removed. Downstairs, Soichiro is talking to a mover with an annoyingly nasal voice while Sachiko tries to soothe Sayu, but Light had felt he owed a last good-bye to his bedroom, the first space that was ever designated as his own.

He almost wishes he hadn't come. The room looks large and inexplicably sad, with afternoon sunlight falling flat onto the empty floor. It should be glancing off his little cart, and his blocks, casting their shadows onto the small shelf crammed with every book he's been able to wheedle away from his parents. But those things are at the new house already, in his big new room with the balcony he can't use.

He finds, abruptly and irrationally, that he wants to write his name on the wall. In the corner, making the kanji as small as his still-clumsy fingers can manage, so that the room will never forget him. But he doesn't have anything to write with, and in any case he knows better than to write on a wall. Sachiko would be angry. And in the end, it's just a room.

"Light?" Sachiko calls up the stairs.

He pauses only for the briefest moment before he yells back, "I'm coming." Gathering up Ducky and Bird, he makes his way down the stairs, listening to the familiar creaks in the wood. Behind him, sunlight drifts across the bedroom floor.


	3. canon

**canon **_a musical form where the melody or tune is imitated by individual parts at regular intervals_

* * *

"Read," demands Sayu.

"Read?" repeats Sachiko, pointing at the nearest picture book. This is how babies learn to speak, apparently, and so Light swallows his indignation at seeing his little sister treated with so little dignity. Anyway, it's not as though she ever seems to notice.

"Yah!" Sayu slaps her hands against her thighs excitedly. "Read! Read Light!"

Light looks up from his own much thicker book on Japanese history. His sister is watching him with big, shining eyes. "You want to read like me?" he translates.

"Yah! Read Light!"

She sounds impatient that he had to ask at all, and Light feels his lips twitch up into a smile. "I'll not stop you," he tells her, and then, to his mother, as he points to a kanji, "What's this one?"

Sachiko glances at the character. "Oh, dear. That's… lottery, I believe. Let's see if I can write it…" As Light watches, committing the stroke order to memory, she draws it on the pad of paper they keep nearby. Most of the top sheet is already covered in increasingly obscure kanji. Sayu looks on, fascinated, her thumb in her mouth.

"I'm nearly sure that's right," Sachiko says, putting down the pen. "Did you see?"

"Uh-huh. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Rai-chan." Sachiko touches his hair affectionately before turning back to her daughter. "Sayu, take your thumb out of your mouth. It's bad for your teeth. Take your thumb out of your mouth, dear."

Sayu blinks innocently.

"Sayu," Light says, "if you take your thumb out of your mouth and let Mom wash your hands, I'll let you borrow my book."

Her eyes go wide with excitement, and she yanks her hand away from her mouth. "Give!" she demands, reaching for the book, but he holds it out of reach.

"Give, what?"

"Give, please!"

But Light just pokes her with his free hand. "Wash your hands."

She pouts, but allows Sachiko to clean her hands with a baby wipe, while Light takes note of the page and paragraph he's reached. Then, true to his word, he closes the book and puts it down in front of Sayu.

"It belongs to someone else, so take very good care of it," Sachiko tells her, but Sayu's clearly not listening. With a triumphant gurgle, she turns the book upside-down, flips it open to the middle, and stares avidly at the lines of text.

Sachiko shoots a look over at Light, who blinks back at her and smiles, before turning back to keep an eye on his book. After a moment, Sachiko shakes her head and does the same.

The glamour of copying Light is clearly paling rapidly, now that Sayu has to actually look at row after row of nonsense squiggles. She frowns, and Light's gaze sharpens. If she's about to start ripping out pages, he'll need to dive in quickly.

But instead, she closes the book with a crisp _snap_, puts it down, and smiles brightly at her family. "Done!" she declares. "Read big!"

Light raises his eyebrows.

"You did," says Sachiko. "You read a very big book. I'm very proud."

"Read Light," Sayu says with satisfaction.

"Just like Light," Sachiko agrees. "Now–"

Too late to stop her, Light realizes what she's about to say.

"–give him back his book, dear."

Light sighs.

And as Sayu's wailing rises in pitch, he slips out the door, heading toward his bedroom, book in hand. They'll notice he's taken it soon, but not yet.

One way or another, he's learning, he always wins in the end.


	4. dolce

**dolce **_sweet or sweetly_

* * *

Every time Light sees his aunts, they offer him sweets.

They're lonely, he'll think later. Aunt Etsuko and Aunt Emiko, twins living together in Kyoto with the rest of Sachiko's family, whom she doesn't take Light and Sayu to visit as much as she could. Something about bad influences and impressionable children; Light heard her talking to Soichiro about it one night.

He doesn't really see it, though. They have books, the aunts, and after they're done cooing at him they let him read whatever he likes. Sayu endures much more cooing, and then she's left in her rocker, to bat at the shapes dangling from the handle until she falls asleep. Light sits beside her as he reads and keeps watch while the adults go into another room to talk. It's peaceful, and there are books here that they don't have at home, and all in all Light rather likes it.

He always knows it's time to leave when the conversation between his mother and her sisters rises slightly in volume. It's no different today. "No," Sachiko is saying as he closes his mystery novel (it's less than half-finished, but the culprit is so obvious that it doesn't really matter). "Sugar is unhealthy for anyone, really, but they're _children_."

"It's just one bag," Emiko says, rather tiredly. "It won't hurt them."

"Sayu would choke!" Sachiko sounds more annoyed than usual. "Konpeito, really, what were you thinking? Absolutely not."

The aunts sigh and murmur acquiescence, and only then does Sachiko appear in the doorway. "Rai-chan, it's time to go."

"Yes, Mom."

As Sachiko lifts Sayu's rocker and shushes the abruptly-awakened Sayu within it, Light ducks into the front room to give his aunts good-bye hugs. When Etsuko pulls back from hers, she keeps hold of one of his arms for long enough to drop a small handful of konpeito into it.

"Shh," Emiko whispers, with a quick smile.

Light blinks down at the little balls of sugar crystal, then slides them into his pocket just as Sachiko emerges from the living room with a mostly-quiescent Sayu. "Thank you very much for your hospitality," Light tells his aunts, and they hug him again, and touch his hair, and say what a sweet boy he is. But as he's leaving, he shoots them one last little grin over his shoulder.

He wishes he saw more of his aunts.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The aunts, unsurprisingly, are the brainchildren of Vashtijoy. Have you guys ever had konpeito? My sister brought me some from Japan and that shit is _fantastic_.


	5. elegy

**elegy **_a lament_

* * *

It is Light's first funeral. He's five years old.

Between the ceremonies, family members and friends and awkward co-workers attempt to form a line in front of Light's aunt and uncle without appearing to do so. One after another, they murmur their condolences to the couple, who look horrible, aged and tired and beaten.

Every so often the two of them shoot bitter glances at Light's family. Light's mother says that people who are grieving sometimes act strangely, and that they don't truly mean it, but Light thinks this is stupid. Even if they won't mean it later, they mean it now.

It's not his fault, or his parents', that he's alive while his cousin is dead. If it's anyone's fault, it's Light's aunt's, for not thinking her genetics might result in a sick child. This is not the sort of opinion one voices, though, so Light keeps silent and watches his aunt and uncle wilt a bit more every time someone tells them, "I'm so sorry about your daughter."

Why do people keep saying it, he wonders, if it's clearly depressing the people they mean to comfort. Perhaps they can't tell?

And no one, not once, has mentioned anything about what happened. Oh, the illness, that's been brought up, but no one's breathed a word about why they're here. About his cousin's death.

It won't go away if they tiptoe around it forever. He's only five and he still knows that.

People are very strange.

As the tiny coffin disappears into the crematorium, someone nearby releases an unsteady breath, and Light's uncle makes a small, wordless noise.

It would be horrible to burn to death, Light thinks. And he wonders if anyone's ever been falsely presumed dead, and woken up to the sound and the heat of rising flames. And then he decides that it's pointless to wonder about questions he'll never be able to answer with certainty.

(He's almost sure it's happened. Statistically speaking, it almost has to have happened, back before reliable autopsies. But he won't think of it.)

* * *

Light is given over to one of his second cousins during the bone-picking ceremony.

He's not surprised. Human remains are the sort of thing adults would want to keep away from children. And he doesn't mind, really; his cousin is too busy cooing over Sayu to pay him much attention and he's free to scour his aunts' house for hidden candy stashes. Much better than picking at a little girl's bones.

It makes no sense, then, for him to find himself on the bone-picking table, surrounded by somber family members.

_I could have fit in that coffin just as well, _he remembers, and he tries to struggle, or to speak, but he can't so much as move his eyes. He stares up at the ceiling as his family closes in, as his mother reaches into his chest with her chopsticks and pulls out a fragment of a rib, cracked by the heat of the fire. She drops it into the urn, and as it clatters against the bottom like a coin, Sayu burbles with laughter as the pieces of her mobile chink together, and Light's eyes fly open.

It takes him a moment to catch his breath. He doesn't have that sort of dream, as a rule, and doesn't know what to make of this one. The fact that he's a child faced with death for the first time doesn't occur to him. He's not a child, he's Light.

Nonetheless, it feels as though something vast and dark has reached out of the sky for him and missed him by inches. Unsettled, he rolls over and pulls Ducky up around him.

He feels better with the (protection) warmth, and is asleep again in minutes.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is for twinklestar148, who encouraged me to get off my ass. I didn't realize it'd been so long, wow.


	6. fermata

**fermata **_hold or pause_

* * *

By and large, nursery school was a disappointment, so Light is glad—excited, even—when he graduates to first grade. The graduation ceremony itself is humiliating in its fake solemnity, in the indulgent smiles he sees the schoolmasters hiding as they hand the restless students their "diplomas". It's good the school is so small, he thinks caustically; if the class had been any bigger, Light suspects the other children wouldn't make it all the way through the ceremony.

But it doesn't take long—not nearly as long as nursery school took—and he clings to Sachiko's reassurance throughout. _You'll like school better once you get out of nursery school, Rai-chan. It's much more serious. _He clings to his little kernel of hope while he watches his father hang his diploma on the wall—_no more games all day long—_and while he and Sachiko go shopping for school supplies—_no more going over everything three times._

* * *

He frowns at his mother when she teases him, asking if he likes his new grown-up notebooks, but the night before he starts at his new school, when she's in another part of the house, he opens his bag and stares reverently at them. They're elegant, with muted covers and simple, lined paper inside. They represent the invisible but very tangible line he's crossed, and now that he's in the real world, the possibilities are limited only by what he can imagine. And he can imagine a lot.

And then, the next morning, as he sits in his new classroom ready to take out his beautiful clean notebooks and fill them with knowledge, his teacher smiles at the class and says, "Now, before we review what you learned in nursery school, how about we play a little game to break the ice?"

* * *

After school, Sachiko greets him with a proud smile. "How was your first day?"

Light, whose mask hasn't slipped once, smiles back. "It was great."


	7. grave

**grave **slow and serious

* * *

From beneath his hair, Light watches Takashi's father lift Takashi in the air and spin him around, laughing. Takashi shrieks with glee and clutches his father's shoulders, and Light smiles politely, wondering what would possess an adult to act so undignified in public.

"And how are you, Light-kun?" Takashi's father asks, once he's put Takashi back down. Takashi clutches at his father's hand and grins at Light.

"I'm well, thank you, Yamamoto-san. How are you?"

"Oh, well enough, well enough." He chuckles, as though he's made a little joke that only he will understand. "Tell your family hello for me."

"Of course."

* * *

Light's father is home for dinner that night. The beginnings of frown lines are etched on his brow and he speaks in low murmurs to Sachiko about Sayu, and about Light when Light is supposed to be out of earshot. They say nothing Light doesn't expect; reports on his grades (perfect) and his behavior (so good it worries his mother, but his father, of course, reassures her).

"Yamamoto-san says hello," Light reports dutifully during dinner, and his mother smiles at him and thanks him, but most of her attention is on Soichiro and Light supposes he can't blame her. He tries to imagine his father as another Yamamoto-san, quick to laughter and perpetually smiling, but then Soichiro speaks and his voice shatters the spell.

It had been strange to think about, anyway.

* * *

The next day, as they get ready for a test, Takashi waves two green Kit Kat bars at Light. "Look what Dad gave me this morning!"

Light shoves his jealousy deep inside him, where it can't be seen. "What flavor is it this time?" he asks.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those who don't know: Kit Kat bars are given to students in Japan on test days because "kitto katsu" means "you will surely win".


	8. incidental music

**incidental music **_background music for a play, movie or television show_

* * *

Light is curled up on the couch with a translated copy of _Moby Dick_ while the television plays the last of its insipid children's shows. Sayu, five years old now, is enthralled by them, grinning and chewing on her thumb. Light is waiting for them to be over.

The show ends, and Sayu wanders away, disappointed, to harass Sachiko in the kitchen. Light presses a series of buttons on the remote control, and the channel changes to NHN. Without looking at the television, he goes back to reading, the serious voices of the newspeople a more soothing backdrop to his reading.

He doesn't notice what they're saying until he hears his mother draw in a hissing breath through her teeth. He hadn't even realized she was there.

He looks up at the television.

"...in an attack by unknown perpetrators. Poisonous gas was released last night into the Kaichi Heights neighborhood in the Matsumoto ward, Nagano prefecture. So far six people have been reported dead..."

He stares at his mother, who in turn is staring at the television and frowning. "Mom?"

She blinks, and looks over at him. The expression of concern doesn't fade. "Yes, dear?"

He doesn't feel frightened, exactly, but he feels very small. "Who would do that?"

Sachiko crosses the room and smooths his hair back from his forehead, bending down to drop a kiss on it. "I don't know, dear. The police will find them, though."

Light has never doubted that. That isn't the question. "Why would they do it, though? What do they get from it?"

"I don't know," Sachiko repeats. After a moment, Light nods, and Sachiko gives him a pat and returns to the kitchen, switching off the TV on her way out of the room.

Concentrating on _Moby Dick _becomes difficult, and eventually Light closes the book. _Six people have been reported dead, _he hears in his head again, and he wonders who those six people were, and who chose them for death, and why. If anyone chose them; if it wasn't just chance. And Light suspects that it may have been, which is such a horrible thought he finds himself hugging his book to his chest. If it was just chance, then where's the justice his father struggles for? Where is the sense of fairness he's been taught to uphold at all times? If it was chance, what's to say it won't be his father next, or his sister, or him?

He sets his book carefully on the coffee table and follows his mother into the kitchen.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The idea behind this one is like… ominous background music. Yes? Yes. Thank you, Vashtijoy, for this idea.


	9. legato

**legato** _in a smooth, even style without any noticeable break between the notes_

* * *

Light wakes in the night to find a different quality in the light filtering into his room. He's half-asleep, still, and bleary-eyed, but he goes to his balcony window and pulls back the curtain.

It's snowing.

He blinks at the sky, shaking off his sleepiness. There's not much snow in Tokyo. It's a shame, since he rather likes it, at least until people step on it and drive over it and ruin it. But it's the middle of the night now, and even from inside his room he can tell that it's still and quiet outside. No one's touched the snow yet. It's all his.

He runs to the bathroom as quietly as he can, and gets two towels. One of them he leaves on his bed, but the other he spreads on the floor just inside the door to his balcony. He slips on a pair of socks, and slides open the door.

A bit of the snow on the balcony falls in onto the towel, just as he thought it would. With a small smile, he steps out into the cold and closes the door behind him.

The snow under his feet melts, soaking through his socks and making him shiver, but he still carries the warmth of his bed with him, and it'll last for a bit longer. He stands still, enveloped in the silence of the night, staring up at the falling flakes of snow. Some of them land in his hair, some of them on his eyelashes, some in his outstretched hand. These melt immediately. Others, luckier, fall to the ground.

It's the closest thing to peace he can remember experiencing. His thoughts don't stop—that won't ever happen, he expects, and it's probably for the best—but his mind's workings are muted to susurrations that flutter to the bottom of his consciousness. The stillness of the night fills his mind and he lets it.

A car door slams, somewhere down the street. Light starts. Suddenly his mind is full of the sound of his thoughts again, and he realizes that he's cold. He won't get sick from cold alone, he knows, but cold depresses the immune system, and he's a child, more susceptible to illness than adults. With regret, he steps back into his room and slips off his wet socks, tossing them in the hamper as he towels the water from his hair.

* * *

The next morning, Sachiko sees the indentations of his footprints on the balcony and scolds him for standing out in the cold. He murmurs reassurances, not paying much attention. Outside, the snow on the sidewalk is already dirty.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is sort of happy. A rarity! As for the theme, light snowfalls sort of remind me of the idea of legato...? Gliding and elegant, yes? Keep in mind that I come from an area with almost no snow.


	10. leitmotif

**leitmotif** _a melodic passage or phrase associated with a specific character, situation, or element_

* * *

One day, over summer break, Sachiko decides Sayu should be watching less television. To encourage this, she buys a book of origami patterns and a thick stack of patterned square paper.

"Light, you should try it too," she says.

Light looks up from his encyclopedia. The paper is irritatingly colorful, and the patterns on the book's cover are simplistic.

"All right," he says.

Sayu doesn't like origami, it turns out. Her clumsy child fingers stutter over the paper, her impatient creases yielding lopsided shapes. Sachiko watches, and makes sure to compliment her, but Light can tell it's reflexive, a parent's praise. He wonders if Sayu knows as well.

From her pouty expression, he would guess so. "I don't want to do origami," she complains. "I want to watch TV."

"Try this one," Sachiko suggests, flipping the pages back to a simpler pattern, but Sayu shakes her head, stubborn. "TV!"

Sachiko sighs. "Why don't you play outside, dear?"

Sayu pauses to consider it. Then, with a brilliant smile, as though she'd not been on the verge of a tantrum a moment before, she jumps down from the kitchen table and runs to the front door.

"May I see that book?" Light asks his mother.

"Of course." Sachiko slides it along the table to him and follows Sayu outside. Left alone, Light he flips through the book until he finds a suitably challenging pattern. He picks up a piece of paper, biting his lip in concentration as he scans the instructions.

Sachiko returns an hour later to find him frowning at the last page of the book, surrounded by origami forms of increasing complexity. They are all perfect, or nearly so. "Light," she says, sounding startled. "These are very good."

He smiles up at her, all automatic charm. "Thanks, Mom." He doesn't say the things he thinks: that they were easy, or that it's just a matter of geometry and precision. He had hoped, perversely, that since origami requires manual dexterity, he might find it a challenge, but it seems that nothing is to be difficult for him.

He feels disappointed, and suspects that this is a peculiar reaction.

"Do you want me to get you more books?" Sachiko asks.

He shakes his head. "No, thank you."

He goes back to his encyclopedia, then, but Sachiko carefully gathers up the origami and displays them on a bookshelf for years, until Soichiro, putting a book back on the shelf, drops it on the best of the figures and flattens them.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Light is good at everything. It is his recurring theme. His leitmotif, if you will.


	11. mosso

**mosso** _more, with motion or animation_

* * *

Light has always been good at sports. Not brilliant, the way he is in the classroom. Not peerless. But good.

In Light's second-to-last year of elementary school, his school builds a set of tennis courts and tennis becomes a part of the physical education curriculum. Light looks forward to it, if only because it's something new.

"Have you ever played tennis before?" he asks Takashi, making conversation as they stretch the first day.

Takashi shakes his head. "No. Have you?"

"No."

"So neither of us has an advantage. Good." Takashi grins at him, and they go to get their racquets and balls.

As they take their places at one of the new courts, Light toys with the tennis ball in his hand and makes sure he remembers the rules they've been given. Maddeningly, Mori-sensei has only touched on the basics, but he can make do with them for now, until he has a chance to look the full set of rules up for himself. He knows, for now, that he's meant to serve the ball across the net, where Takashi will let it bounce once and then return it, at which point they will volley it back and forth until someone misses, or hits it so that it goes beyond the bounds of the court.

It sounds simple enough. Takashi looks at him expectantly. He drops the ball and serves.

The ball rebounds against the court and bounces past Takashi's right ear before Takashi realizes what's happened.

"Fifteen-love," Light murmurs as Takashi retrieves the ball.

The hour is a blur of serves and returns, vague concepts of arcs and trajectories translated into the swing of his arm, the smack of the ball on the asphalt. "I thought you hadn't played tennis before," Takashi says at one point, sulkily.

"I haven't."

Takashi rolls his eyes.

After the hour of physical education is up, as the students make their way back to the school building, Mori-sensei pulls Light aside. "Do you play tennis anywhere?" he asks, a gleam in his eyes.

"No, sir."

"You should. Ask your parents about it." Mori-sensei claps him on the shoulder. "Go on, then."

Thoughtfully, Light goes.


	12. nocturne

**nocturne** _a quiet, lyrical piece often with pensive, dreamy mood_

* * *

Light dreams.

He is in a museum whose layout echoes that of his school, but vaster, the rooms larger, the hallways wider. The architecture is white and minimalistic. Though he can see perfectly well, there are no sources of light: no windows, no lamps, none of the flickering fluorescent bulbs of his real school.

There is no one else in the building. The classroom-galleries are empty. The only incidences of color are Light himself and the occasional glass vase in the halls. They sit on white plinths, calm and vivid, with no plaques nearby to describe them or even give the artist's name. This is a strange museum, Light thinks. He wonders if he is supposed to be here.

If he's not, there's nothing he can do about it. He's been wandering for hours and hasn't found an exit. The vases, once welcome breaks in the endless white, now infuriate him for no reason he can pinpoint. He decides to break the next one he sees, but when he sees it, he walks past it instead. And keeps walking.

Rage claws at his mind as he walks, and walks, a prisoner in his body, never stopping, passing the same vases over and over. Rage, and boredom so powerful and malignant it feels like despair. He's going to be trapped here forever, he knows, with the vases and the flat white light.

Forever.

And then he wakes, shivering, to find that it's morning and his mother is standing in the doorway to his bedroom. "Are you okay, Light?" she asks, looking at him with worry.

"I'm fine," he manages, gathering the scattered pieces of his composure, still half-trapped in the horror of the nightmare. "Just a bad dream," he adds, when she doesn't seem convinced.

"If you say so," she says, looking only somewhat less concerned. "Anyway, it's time to get up."


	13. ostinato

**ostinato** _indicates a part that repeats the same rhythm or melodic element_

* * *

On a cold day in October, when Light is twelve, he comes home from school to find his father's car already in the driveway. He frowns at it as he goes inside.

His mother comes to the door to meet him, which is normal. She's frowning, which is not. Light greets her, and looks around for his father. There's no sign of him, except his shoes by the door, and no sound to indicate where he might be. "Is Dad in his study?" he asks, arranging his own shoes.

"Dad is upstairs resting," Sachiko says.

Light, who lives in well-concealed fear that someday his father will be injured in the course of his work, looks up a little bit too quickly. "Why? Is he hurt?"

"No, dear." Sachiko gives him a small smile that doesn't erase the worry in her expression. "He's sick, that's all. Let him rest for now, all right?"

"He's been sick before," Light says carefully. "And still gone to work, unless it was contagious."

"This is a different kind of sickness," says Sachiko, and Light grits his teeth at the simplistic explanation, but his frustration doesn't show on his face.

"Will he be here tomorrow?" he asks instead.

"He might." Sachiko looks at him a bit sadly. "Probably not the day after."

"Well," says Light with forced cheerfulness, "he can't be that sick if it only lasts two days."

Sachiko only smiles. It doesn't reach her eyes, and Light wishes he could take the words back.

* * *

Light doesn't expect Soichiro to come down to dinner, but he does. He seems much like his usual self, serious, but quick to praise Light and Sayu as they recount tales of the previous week. So quick to praise them, in fact, that Light wonders if he really hears any of what they're saying. Light watches his father throughout dinner, but there's nothing else to suggest he might be sick except the way he holds himself: gingerly, as though he's afraid of breaking.

After dinner, Sayu leaves to finish her homework and Soichiro retreats to his bedroom again, but Light stays in the kitchen with Sachiko.

"What's wrong with him?" he asks.

Sachiko sighs, and puts down the dish she's scrubbing. "It's just stress."

Light remembers reading about stress in a medical encyclopedia. _Stress is the consequence of the failure to respond adequately to mental, emotional, or physical demands, whether actual or imagined. _He knows there's more to it than that, of course, but the idea of his father failing to respond adequately to anything is strange and disturbing. "What are his symptoms?"

"Nausea. Dizziness." Despite her assurance a moment ago, Sachiko's face is grave. "Memory problems. And some chest pain."

Light nods. "I'm going to go read now," he says.

"All right." Sachiko pauses. "Don't worry about your father, dear. He'll be fine."

Light doesn't think she believes it.

In the sanctuary of his room, he curls up on his bed, _The Art of War_ lying unopened beside him. He knows his reaction is based on a child's vision of a father, indestructible and powerful, and he's not a child anymore. Still, he's never had reason to doubt his father's strength before now, and he has to admit to himself that he's shaken by the idea that his father's noble work wears on him.

Well, he thinks, there's a first time for everything, and his father is only human.

And nothing, not even his father's health, is more important than the work he does. Right?

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It is the sort of thing that happens to you if you work in a stressful job all day, every day, over and over. Ostinato, yes? Incidentally, the quotation from the "medical encyclopedia" is actually from Wikipedia.


	14. rhapsody

**rhapsody** _implies a work free in form and inspiration_

* * *

In geometry class, Light smiles politely at a girl who's looking at him, and she stares for a moment longer before her lip trembles and she bursts into tears. The teacher pauses in his lecture, startled, as the girl's friends converge on her, petting and comforting and shooting glares in Light's direction.

At lunch, when he tries to explain an aspect of the geometry lesson to Takashi, Takashi scowls at him until he gives up, and then doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day.

At home, Sayu, only ten years old, is already starting to throw her own pre-adolescent tantrums. Today, it's over Sachiko's insistence that she do her homework before she watches television.

"I thought the stories were exaggerated," Sachiko says, bewildered, as Sayu stomps upstairs and slams the door to her bedroom.

"What stories?" Light asks.

"Oh, you know. Pubescent mood swings. You've never really had them, so I thought..."

Light shrugs. "Sayu's a girl. It's probably different with them."

"Not as different as you might want to think," Sachiko says wryly.

* * *

The next day, Sayu is cheerful, and Takashi apologizes, and the girl is back to staring, dreamy-eyed, as though nothing has happened. Light smiles and accepts it all with equanimity, and wonders what it would be like, being unable to control the whirling and pitching of one's own emotions. Like being caught in a storm in the ocean, he imagines, tossed back and forth by waves, battered by rain, with nothing to hold onto.

He's glad he himself doesn't experience such things.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Because a rhapsody goes through a lot of different moods, like a teenager. Or like most teenagers...


	15. ritenudo

**ritenudo** _slow down at once_

* * *

When Light is fourteen, he wins the national tennis tournament for junior high students for the second year in a row.

His mother beams her approval at him, and he's too excited to take much note of the hint of reserve in her eyes. He grins and clutches his trophy as they make their way back home, reliving the best moments of the tournament in his head: his first point and his final one, the expressions on his opponents' faces when he beat them. Some of them had looked upset, or disbelieving; some of them, remembering him from last year, had seemed resigned.

Sachiko puts the trophy on a high shelf next to the previous year's, and sends him off to shower and finish the weekend's homework, which he's neglected until now in favor of preparing for the tournament. He hurries to do so, feeling his mother's gaze on his back.

Still exhilarated, he finishes his homework quickly and starts down the stairs, intending to look at his trophy for a while, but then he stops, hearing his parents' voices in the living room. He wants to run and greet his father, receive his congratulations, but something in his parents' quiet, almost furtive voices suggests he'll be better served by staying here than by making his presence known. So, restraining himself, he sits on the stairs and listens.

"...concerned," Soichiro is saying. "With his talent, with his mind, he should be focusing on school."

"His grades are perfect, dear," Sachiko says. "There's no sign that he's letting his studies lapse." There's a note of censure in her voice, but Light can hear also a degree of hesitation, as though she isn't sure whether to agree with Soichiro or not.

"But think what he could accomplish," Soichiro insists. "If he would just give up playing games. Imagine what he could do, Sachiko."

"I don't know," she says, sounding unsure. "If his grades are good... It's not that I don't agree with you. It's only that I feel like he should be allowed to do what he wants, at least for now. He's a child."

"He's too brilliant to be wasting his life on sports," Soichiro says, stubborn, and after a moment, Sachiko sighs.

"You're right, dear. But what am I going to do about it? I can hardly tell him to quit, not when he's just..."

Light doesn't hear the rest of her sentence. Stunned, he stumbles back to his room, where he leans against the door and blinks back tears he's too old to shed, pierced by a hurt he's far too old to feel.

Well, he thinks. That's that.

* * *

Four days later, he announces calmly to his mother that he plans to quit tennis once he enters high school. She looks concerned, and asks him why, but there's a glimmer of relief as well that he can't miss, now that he's looking for it. Good, he thinks.

His father should be pleased, too, once he hears.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This idea is blatantly and mostly shamelessly stolen from Vashtijoy, even more than most of the rest of this fic. I have permission, at least?


	16. rubato

**rubato** _a direction to allow a player a measure of freedom in performance_

* * *

On Light's fifteenth birthday, his mother presents him with an envelope.

He opens it to find a debit card. Sachiko smiles at him. "We thought it was time you learned how to manage money, so we opened an account for you. From now on, your allowance will be four thousand yen a week. You're free to spend it on whatever you like, but don't waste it."

Light stares down at the items a moment longer, then remembers to blink, and smile up at Sachiko. "Thanks, Mom. I won't disappoint you."

She smiles back. "I know you won't."

* * *

"You work hard now so that later you'll have the freedom to do whatever you want," Light's biology teacher insists at the beginning of the year. "Put in effort at school and the future will open up before you." The class seems unmoved.

Light knows better, certainly. The freedom his teacher describes is merely the freedom to fall into step with society in whatever superficially unique way seems appealing. Not even his father's profession, the one Light has chosen for himself, is immune to the drudgery of the day-to-day grind. He's seen it in his father, and he knows it's coming for him.

He goes to a good school, yes. One of the best in Tokyo. All that means is that he's being prepped for the top echelons of the endless flocks of salarymen and wage slaves. There's no escaping it, not really, not if he plans to survive.

It's been a long time since he believed in freedom.

* * *

As the months pass, his money accumulates in his account, almost entirely unspent.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: He had to get the money for that tiny TV from somewhere, right?


	17. sempre

**sempre** _in the same manner throughout_

* * *

By the time Light enters high school, he knows what to expect.

No more insipid get-to-know-each-other games, no. In that, high school is not like elementary school. But the reviewing, and reviewing, and then proceeding at a snail's pace—that's all the same as it has been, not only every time he changes schools but every year, every semester, every week, every day, every class. He plays with his pencil and stares out the window. The scenery, at least, is new, though it won't be for long.

Unfortunately, a student staring out the window attracts teachers like nothing else. Hearing his name, Light blinks, and turns back to the front of the class. The teacher looks stern, clearly expecting him not to be able to answer her question. When he calmly recites the formula, she blinks in surprise. A boy who went to junior high school with him rolls his eyes.

He's stopped asking for books for holiday presents, which puzzles his mother. He doesn't ask for anything anymore, so she buys him books anyway, and he reads them, because it would disappoint her if he didn't. The nonfiction books contain information, so he values them, but he's read enough novels by now that he's able to pick up on all the clues and anticipate all the twists. When he's wrong, which is seldom, it's usually because he credits the author with too much cleverness. This particular mistake happens less and less as he ages.

Once his preferred television station, even the news now seems to repeat itself. The content differs, of course, but the subject matter is fundamentally the same. Violent crime, government corruption, natural disasters, economic stagnation. Compounding and playing on each other, day after day after day.

* * *

"What's wrong?" Sachiko asks one day as he's heading up the stairs to his room.

He stops and turns back to look at her. "Sorry?"

"You look unhappy." She frowns at him. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." He summons a smile from somewhere and offers it to her, making a mental note to maintain a better facade. "I've just had a long day."


	18. senza

**senza** _without_

* * *

The parts of Tokyo that Light frequents are more affluent than most, and most of the people he sees are as well-off as he is, going about their business with their heads held high. They move purposefully, a swirl of humanity around him. He notices none of them.

It's the incongruity of the homeless man that catches Light's eye.

Most people ignore him. A few glance at him, then turn away, frowning or wrinkling their noses in distaste. He pushes his heavily-laden cart along the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to it all. Light wonders why he's here in Setagaya, and not somewhere with larger homeless population. Surely he can see everyone's reactions to him?

In truth, though he's careful to conceal it, the man's presence makes him uncomfortable.

As he passes the man, a bag drops from the top of the cart and falls to the ground with a soft _plop_. Smiling, Light picks it up and offers it to the man. "Here."

"Thank you," the man murmurs, taking his bag and walking on without further comment. Light watches him go for a moment, then continues toward his house, resisting the impulse to wipe his hand on his clothes.

* * *

One Thursday night, Sachiko decides to take Sayu and Light to dinner in Shinjuku. As they approach the restaurant, Light heads toward the door, intending to hold it open for the women, but a man dressed in unseasonable layers of clothes opens it for them instead. He holds a cup in one hand, and looks at them with hope in his deep-set eyes. Sayu fumbles in her purse for spare change, but Sachiko hurries her through the door with only a nod of thanks for the man.

Sayu protests until Sachiko, exasperated, agrees to allow Sayu to give the man money on their way out. But when they leave, the man is gone.


	19. unison

**unison** _the act or an instance of speaking the same words simultaneously by two or more speakers_

* * *

"Light," Sachiko says, once Sayu's left for school, "what happened to that girl you were seeing? Uoya-san?"

Unseen, Light grimaces, before turning to her with a smile. "I just dated her once, Mom. I was hardly seeing her."

Sachiko frowns at him. "That's the fourth girl this year you've said that about."

He shrugs. "What can I tell you? They just aren't right for me."

"I see the way they look at you." She crosses her arms. "You're breaking their hearts."

Light frowns back at her. "I can't help how they feel. Mom, what's your point?"

She sighs. "When are you going to get a girlfriend, Light?"

He blinks. "I'm sixteen. What's the hurry? I'll get one when I find one that I feel is right." Which will be never, he suspects, but the platitudes usually work well enough. "Don't worry, Mom, you'll have grandchildren."

"That's not what I'm worried about," she begins, but then she glances at the clock. "Never mind. You're going to be late. Have a good day, dear."

"All right. See you later." He shoots her one last glance as he heads out the door, puzzled.

* * *

"Hey, Light."

Light sets down his book and looks at Takashi—Yamamoto, he calls him, now that they're almost adults. Yamamoto doesn't seem to have caught on to that one yet, though.

"Yes?" Light says.

"What happened with Emi-san? You went out with her, right?" Yamamoto eyes Emi from across the classroom. She's talking with her friends, her back turned to the two of them.

Light wonders if Yamamoto and his mother have been talking behind his back. But all he says is, "I did, yeah."

"And?" Yamamoto nudges him.

"And it was a date." Light shrugs. "I didn't feel particularly drawn to her, so we didn't go out again."

"You didn't feel drawn to her?" Yamamoto is incredulous. "You didn't feel _drawn _to her? With that body?"

"Some of us," Light says loftily, "have other criteria."

"Well, then, what are your criteria, man? You've dated, like, six girls this year—"

"Four."

"—and you've said the same thing about all of them."

With a sigh, Light tells him the same thing he told his mother. "I don't know, Yamamoto. I'll know her when I find her."

Yamamoto huffs. "It'd better be soon, or you'll run through all the girls in the school."

* * *

"Light, I have a question!"

Light sets down his pen and turns in his chair to face Sayu, who, as usual, has entered his room uninvited. "Did you look in the back of the book?"

"Not a school question. A dating question."

This should be good, Light thinks. "Go on."

"Why haven't you ever had a girlfriend?"

Light blinks at her. If everyone is so curious about this, why have they all waited until today to ask him about it? Emi Uoya was more than a month ago. "I haven't found anyone I want to be my girlfriend," he says, his tone a bit testy. "Did Mom put you up to this?"

"What?" She looks genuinely startled. "No. Why?"

Light decides he believes her. "She was asking me the same thing earlier, that's all. Listen, Sayu, I'll get a girlfriend eventually. Why does it matter?"

"I was just wondering." She grins at him. "I want to see the girl you end up liking. I bet she'll be really hot."

He rolls his eyes. "If you don't have any real questions, go finish your homework."

But he doesn't pick up his pen again once she's gone.

He's told the truth today. He doesn't know what he wants in a girl, but he knows he hasn't found it. He always thought intelligence would be the most important thing to him, but he's all but given up on finding a clever girl, and that leaves... what?

He knows he'll have to choose a girl eventually, and spend his life with her. It's a horrible thought, so he turns back to his homework, putting it out of his mind.


	20. vivace

**vivace** _to play a piece in a fast, lively tempo_

* * *

When Light enters his last semester of high school, he finds that a change has come over his class. Energy hums in the air, born of the excitement of knowing that this is the final semester before university. His classmates chatter to each other about schools and careers as they walk down the halls, and lowerclassmen watch them with respect. In classes, some of them work harder, knowing the entrance exams are approaching. Some of them whisper to each other or space out, unable to stay focused after so long. All of them are excited, though some are more dignified about it than others.

Light feels none of it.

He's in a bubble, he thinks, that none of their joy can penetrate. It slips past him like rainwater on glass, where he on the other side can see it but remains sheltered, in the warmth and relative comfort of his ennui.

Because he knows it's better to be bored, better to be dissatisfied than to be optimistic when optimism is unreasonable. And anyone who stops to think about the world will realize how childish it is to be happy.

Light wonders if any of his classmates even watch the news or read the papers. Some of them do, surely. A few of them. But he would never guess it from the way they act. They don't take it in, he supposes. They don't want to understand.

He stares out the window of his classroom. He should be following along in his book while the English teacher reads aloud, but he doesn't care. He speaks better English than any of the other students. He almost speaks better English than the teacher.

The day is bright, but cold. The school smells of the dust of the heaters. Light is wondering idly whether his father is involved in the case he heard about yesterday on the news.

Then, as he looks across the schoolyard, he sees a black notebook fall from the sky.


	21. epilogue: encore

**encore** _a demand by an audience for an additional performance_

* * *

Misa wants to help Light clean out his room. "Or at least visit with your family!" she says, all bright eyes and enthusiasm, dyed hair and revealing clothes. Light knows what his mother must think of her. He knows what he thinks of her.

"You can get the apartment ready for me, Misa," he says.

Sachiko greets him at the door to her house—his house too, once—with a hug and sad eyes. He returns her hug one-armed, holding the suitcases he's brought in his other. "Is Sayu home?" he asks, not sure which answer he hopes for.

"No, she's at a friend's. Can I get you something to eat, Light?" She holds him at arm's length. "Have you gotten taller?"

He smiles at her. "I'm just here to get my things, I'm afraid. Next time."

She lets him go, with visible reluctance. "All right. Go on up, then."

He does.

His room is just how he left it, spotless, with no trace of dust. Sachiko has been here. Light is glad he disarmed the trap in his desk before he left. He allows himself a quick glance around, no more, before he goes to his closet. Empty of the death note, his bedroom is a monument to the dullness of his life before Kira, and he wants to spend as little time in it as possible.

Now that L is dead, he thinks sometimes that he can feel that dullness trying to seep back in around the edges of his mind. But it won't return. He's sure of it. He has everything he wants now, after all.

He takes his clothes out of the closet piece by piece and folds them, placing them neatly in the suitcase, pressed together to make the most of the space. Occasionally he finds pieces of clothing that he's outgrown, or no longer wants, and these he tosses in a trash bag, destined for a charity of his mother's choosing.

He's almost finished when he sees them, lying forgotten on the floor of the closet.

A plush helicopter, and a blanket with a duck on it. Bird and Ducky. He hasn't even thought of them in years. He reaches down and picks them up, turning them over in his hands, remembering.

And then he shakes himself, and presses his lips together, and tosses Ducky and Bird into the trash.


End file.
